Arjun Arigasi’s freestyle chess journey ends in Grand Slam

Las Vegas (America): Indian Grandmaster Arjun Arigasi’s freestyle chess ended with a 0–2 defeat to the former Armenia player in the semi-finals at the Chess Grand Slam and now a 0–2 defeat to Lavon Aronion, who was playing for the US.

Arigasi had performed brilliantly in the competition earlier and he became the first Indian to reach the last four of the Freestyle Grand Slam. He could not retain his magical rhythm against Aronian and he faced defeat in both the instruments.

The Indian player defeated the world number one Magnus Carlson in the initial play-off and Hikaru Nakamura in the quarter-finals to make it to the semi-finals. He was also seen in a good position in the first bet against Aronian but failed to capitalize on the occasions.

Aronion kept his grip despite being in a difficult situation and when Arjun could not take advantage of his lead, he got the benefit of it.

Aronion needed only a draw in the second bet to make it to the finals. He made efforts to equalize the bet from the beginning and at one time it seemed that the match was moving towards the draw, but Arjun needed to win to stay in the match and in such a situation he took unnecessary risk which he had to pay for a heavy price.

Hans Mokay Neemon of America was the second player to reach the final. He defeated compatriot Fabiano Caruana.

Indian player R Pragyananda, who was out of the title race, defeated Vincent Kimar of Germany 1.5–0.5 in the playoffs from third to eighth place. Norway player Carlson also won by the same margin against Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan.

In other matches, Vesley So, US Wesley So, defeated Nodirbake Abdotsatorov of Uzbekistan 3–1, while Hikaru Nakamura of America beat Hum Vatan Linier Dominguase Perez 2–0.